When men have well drunk. — The same Greek word is used in the LXX. in Genesis 43:34, and rendered in the Authorised version “were merry;” but its general use in the Old Testament, as in classical writers, and its invariable use in the New Testament (Matthew 24:49; Acts 2:15; 1 Corinthians 11:21; Ephesians 5:18; 1 Thessalonians 5:7; Revelation 17:6, are the only passages) is to express the state of drunkenness. Our translators have shrunk from that rendering here, though it was before them in the “When men be dronke,” of Tyndall and Cranmer. The physical meaning of the word is to saturate with moisture, as we say, to be drenched, which is the same word as drunk. There is clearly no reference to the present feast. It is a coarse jest of the ruler’s, the sort of remark that forms part of the stock in trade of a hired manager of banquets.
Related Commentaries of John 2:10
John 2:10
10 And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.